Local Election Predictions…

Here are five quick predictions for the upcoming Local Elections on May 5th: –

The Conservatives will do badly as they are defending well over half the council seats in the election- How badly the Tories do is linked in part to the performance of their Coalition partners the Liberal Democrats, and who the public perceive to blame for the cuts. A good night for the Tories would be to keep their losses below the five hundred seat mark but I believe they will end up losing nearer eight hundred seats. David Cameron has been quite visible during the campaign to try and sell his ideas across the country but I doubt his work will pay off come polling day.

The Liberal Democrats will have a terrible night- This prediction is a given. Nick Clegg’s party are doing poorly in the polls and the public’s perception of him isn’t much better. The Lib Dems are defending slightly more seats than Labour but could endure losses on a scale similar to the Tories. Losses of a thousand or so seats would certainly fuel leadership speculation yet again but I suspect the Lib Dems will incur losses of around six hundred seats so Clegg’s position should be safe for the time being.

Labour should top one thousand council seat gains easily- The bare minimum seat gain target for Ed Miliband’s party should be the 566 seat gains Iain Duncan Smith made in the Local Elections in 2003. Labour are coming from a very low base however, defending only seventeen percent of council seats, so they should pass this target with ease. I predict Labour will pick up a lot of disaffected Lib Dem votes plus those who wish to vote tactically to send a message to the Government, so therefore around twelve hundred seat gains would seem reasonable. The only issue with such a giant seat haul for Labour is that they will have more councils under their control which will have to administer the Coalition cuts and may become unpopular throughout their term.

The smaller parties will make gains from both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats- The likes of UKIP, the Green party, and others will make modest gains from the Coalition partners as those who cannot bring themselves to vote for Labour will seek other candidates who they feel will bring change their local wards. I would predict in total the “Others” will make around one hundred gains in total.

The result of the Local Elections will add to the result of the AV Referendum- The AV Referendum result will be known roughly a day later than the Local Election results so the media will devote near enough forty eight hours to both elections. If the No to AV camp wins the Referendum this could curb any momentum (half of) Labour have and provide a “double whammy” to the Lib Dems.